John Kricfalusi
|Row 3 title = Birth place |Row 3 info = Chicoutimi, Quebec, Canada |Row 4 title = Other names |Row 4 info = John K. Raymond Spüm Raymond S. |Row 5 title = Occupation |Row 5 info = Animator, voice actor |Row 6 title = Years active |Row 6 info = 1979-present |Row 7 title = Notable work(s) |Row 7 info = The Ren & Stimpy Show, The Goddamn George Liquor Program, Weekend Pussy Hunt, The Ripping Friends, Ren & Stimpy '' Adult Party Cartoon''}} John Kricfalusi (born Michael John Kricfalusi, September 9, 1955 in Chicoutimi, Quebec, Canada) is a Canadian cartoonist, and creator of The Ren & Stimpy Show. Early work Kricfalusi first worked on projects with Ralph Bakshi, especially on Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, and later went to work on the 1980s revival of Beany and Cecil, where he would work with many of the people with whom he would later work on Ren and Stimpy. Ren and Stimpy Earlier in his career, Kricfalusi would draw pictures of Stimpy, a "retarded cat" based on of a pair of cats in a Tweedy Bird cartoon, A Gruesome Twosome, which had cats with big bulbous noses. Around that same time, he created "asthma-hound Chihuahua" Ren Höek from a postcard one sent him of a Chihuahua with a sweater on. Later on, Joel Faynor, who worked with Kricfalusi, suggested to him that he should put the two characters together, and the advice was accepted. Kricfalusi goes into more depth on the creations in "Ren and Stimpy: In the Beginning," a featurette on Disc 1 of The Ren & Stimpy Show: The First and Second Season (Uncut) DVD. Kricfalusi, along with partners Jim Smith, Bob Camp, and Lynne Naylor, founded the studio Spümcø in 1988, and pitched The Ren & Stimpy Show around several networks until Nickelodeon picked it up. It first aired on August 11, 1991, with "Stimpy's Big Day/The Big Shot." Throughout the series' five seasons, Kricfalusi was only involved with the first two. He started to battle with the executives at Nickelodeon over missed deadlines and content and after the episode, Man's Best Friend, Nickelodeon fired Kricfalusi, and Spümcø, from his own series. The last three seasons were done by Games Animation, Nickelodeon's studio, with some season two and three episodes originally started at Spümcø. Later efforts Kricfalusi would go on direct several music videos, for Björk's "I Miss You" (animated by the entire Spümcø staff) in 1997, Tenacious D's "Classico" in 2006, and "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Close But No Cigar" that same year. He would also create two Internet-only cartoons: The Goddamn George Liquor Program (the first Internet-only cartoon) in 1997 and Weekend Pussy Hunt in 1999. Kricfalusi returned to television and directed two Yogi Bear cartoons, dedicated to Hanna and Joseph Barbera: Boo Boo Runs Wild and A Day in the Life of Ranger Smith and the animated series The Ripping Friends in 2001. Adult Party Cartoon In 2002, Kricfalusi was contacted by the struggling TNN (now Spike) network to produce new episodes of Ren and Stimpy. John created Ren and Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon", which used plots developed from the original series, but with swearing, violence, sexually explicit adult themes and extreme dialogue added, and the show aired in June 2003. However, the reboot was cancelled after only three episodes aired, due to heavy criticism and adverse reviews. These episodes and several unaired episodes, were put out on DVD as "Ren & Stimpy: The Lost Episodes" in 2006 after Spumco was filed lawsuit on July 18, 2005 by Carbunkle Cartoons in Canada. However, Kricfalusi was unhappy with how Adult Party turned out. Newer fans of Ren and Stimpy panned and hated this reboot and somewhat older fans hated it as well. As the reboot was poorly received, it damaged the reputations of both Ren and Stimpy and John Kricfalusi. Sexual allegation incidents In 2018, Kricfalusi was accused of sexual harassment: Animators Robyn Byrd and Katie Rice alleged in a BuzzFeed report on March 29, 2018, that they were sexually harassed and groomed for sexual abuse by Kricfalusi while they were underage. Byrd said that she was in a sexual relationship with Kricfalusi in 1997 when she was 16 and moved in with him when she was 17. Katie Rice said that she was sexually harassed by Kricfalusi when she turned 18 and began working at his animation studio, Spümcø. Documents they had saved from those years corroborate their stories, and several people who worked with Kricfalusi referred to his sexual harassment as an open secret in the animation industry. Kricfalusi was also alleged to possess child pornography on his computer. Kricfalusi's lawyer confirmed that "for a brief time, 25 years ago, he had a 16-year-old girlfriend", but denied that Kricfalusi's "avid pursuit" of Rice was sexual harassment or that he had ever possessed child pornography. On April 6, 2018, Robin Byrd revealed the graphic threats from Kricfalusi she had received via Twitter, further harming his reputation. She posted screenshots of Kricfalusi posting under a known pseudonym. In one of those messages Kricfalusi said to Byrd in defense, "It's not my fault you were (expletive) underage you were just so (expletive) sexy."Screenshot on Byrd's Twitter In early May 2018, Kricfalusi published an apology on Facebook on the matter and his subsequent actions. Byrd referred to his apology as a "non-apology and a big pile of manipulative crap" and an attempt to deflect the blame. Episode credits References Category:Cast Category:Writers Category:Directors Category:Employees fired from Nickelodeon Category:Spümcø